Subject: The Need of Pentecostal Power Text: Acts 2:1-4
Introduction:
The Church was born at Pentecost and now Pentecost has become a Sacred Holiday on the church calendar. Of course, Pentecost has always been a holiday that celebrated the harvest of grain. It was one of the three official feasts that called the men of Israel to worship three times a year. For Israel, it was a harvest of grain, but for the Church, Pentecost is a great harvest of the Spirit. Because of Pentecost, we reap a harvest of Power to be a witness; an ability to be renewed, transformed, and live Life in his presence. Because of Pentecost, His power is abundantly available to us that believe.
We, the church of Jesus Christ, are a Pentecostal Church. We were born of the Spirit, we identify with the Spirit and seek after the fullness of the Spirit just as they did at Pentecost.
I believe that we need a harvest of the Spirit of God in our lives once again. As witnesses, we cannot afford to stop seeking to be filled with His power. As the church, we cannot afford to remain the same, we need to be transformed. As His Children, we cannot afford to ignore His immediate presence. We as a church need that Pentecostal power once again!
1. We Need The Holy Spirit Because We Need Power To Witness
Acts 1:4 And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.
Acts 1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
A Story is told of a lady that went to a jeweler to have her watch repaired. He disappeared to the back and soon returned with it running perfectly. Surprised, she asked how he could fix it so soon? He told her it only needed a new battery. Battery? Battery? No body said anything about a battery. “I’ve been winding it every morning for five years!"
A lot of Christians do not realize the inner power of the Holy Spirit to handle things they think they must take into their own hands. His power is available to US TO COMPLETE THE TASK BEFORE US IN THE HARVEST and he wants us to complete the task in his power and not by our ingenuity.
You can see from our text that God did not dare ask His people to do His work without giving them the ability to do it. This is why they were asked to wait in Jerusalem until power from on high descended upon them. Apart from the Holy Spirit, no one can do the work of the ministry as God wants them to do. With the Holy Spirit, we can make a difference.
1 Cor. 2:4-5 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power: That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. Without the Power of the Holy Spirit, the message of the Gospel rests in man’s wisdom and the church would have a form of godliness without the power.
The human body is a most remarkable machine. It can maintain a constant temperature of 98.6 degrees no matter what the weather is outside. Whether a man is at the Arctic Circle or the Equator, his body temperature is about the same. There is an inner mechanism that makes the difference. For the Christian, the Holy Spirit is that inner mechanism to help us make a difference in this world.
2. We Need The Holy Spirit Because Only Through His Power Can We Be Transformed.
Acts 2:1-4 ¶ And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Fire is the symbol of transformation! Fire changes whatever it touches. The Holy Spirit took a group of fisherman, former prostitutes, ex-religious leaders, tax collectors, and various family members of Jesus and the other disciples and formed them into a united group…we call the church. Before Pentecost, the disciples were scarred; they lacked faith, and they did not fully understand God’s plan. After Pentecostal fire fell however, they were united as never before. Nothing earlier had welded them into one united force. It took the fire of God’s Spirit to do this.
A story is told of a blacksmith who had two pieces of iron which he wished to weld into one. He took them just as they were, all cold and hard, and put them on the anvil, and began to hammer with all his might, but they were still two pieces, and they would not unite. At last he remembered what he should never have forgotten. He thrust both of them into the fire, took them out red-hot, laid one on the other, and by one or two blows of the hammer they soon became one.
The only thing that can build the church work in our day is God’s Spirit. There has never been a program that has dramatically transformed people’s lives, brought them from all walks of life and turned them into a united group that can actually accomplish something for God except by the Spirit of God. It takes God’s Spirit to do that. The Church was birthed in the power of the Holy Spirit, Society won’t be transformed until the Church is transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Joh 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
3. We Need The Holy Spirit’s Power So Men Might Experience The Immediate Presence Of God.
Matthew 3:11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
Acts 2:6-8 Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?
The manifestation in the upper room was seen and experienced by all present. The consuming fire of the Old Testament showed up. They knew God to be a God who answers by fire. They were familiar with Moses’ burning bush, the fire that consumed the altar sacrifice. As Solomon was dedicating the temple, when Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. This was the supernatural fire from the presence of God fell on the sacrifices. The proof of God’s acceptance was the supernatural fire that fell from heaven.
The Apostle Paul said, 1 Cor. 6:19, 20 What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
At Pentecost, the individual believers had tongues of fire over them, Supernatural fire from heaven … Once again God sent His own fire to demonstrate that from now on He would accept the "temple" – the individual as His dwelling place, So that the believer is a "temple" of the Holy Spirit. The Church - would now become the dwelling place of God’s Holy Spirit.
John 14:16,17 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
I thank God for the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. I thank God for that relationship. I also know that unless I build and maintain my relationship I can easily have that relationship come to a halt.
One New Year’s Day, in the Tournament of Roses parade, a beautiful float suddenly sputtered and quit. It was out of gas. The whole parade was held up until someone could get a can of gas. The amusing thing was this float represented the Standard Oil Company. With its vast oil resources, its truck was out of gas. Often, Christians neglect their spiritual maintenance, and though they are "clothed with power" (Luke 24:49) they find themselves out of gas.
In Leviticus 6:12, instructions were given that the fire that fell from God should never be permitted to go out, it was to be attended constantly around the clock so it would never go out. So attend the fire of the Spirit of God in our lives, it should never be allowed to go out!
The Bible says 1 Thes. 5:19 Quench not the Spirit. Do not put out the Spirit’s fire;
The people of God who are walking in the Spirit, and flowing in His gifts, ought to
cherish his presence and constantly stir up the fire he has placed within us.
The only way we are going to make a difference in this world in these last days is by the Spirit of God. Zec 4:6 Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.
